This week in 1999

“To all my loved ones, I hope they find peace. To all of you here today, I forgive you and I hope I can be forgiven in my next life.”

— Walter LaGrand, convicted of murder, gas chamber, Arizona.
Executed March 3, 1999

German citizen LaGrand protested his death sentence by choosing the gas chamber over lethal injection with the hope that his punishment would end up being ruled cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court overruled that logic, but not without protest from the German government and other countries worldwide. The World Court held a thirty-minute hearing in which a Sri Lankan judge urged the U.S. government to prevent the execution, but Arizona governor Jane Hull proceeded with it. LaGrand’s brother Karl had been executed for his role in the crime a week prior.